RECONSTRUCTION 

AND  THE  RENEWAL  OF  LIFE 
THREE  LAY  SERMONS 

BY 

W.  R.SORLEY 


RECONSTRUCTION 

AND  THE  RENEWAL  OF  LIFE 


CAMBRIDGE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

C.  F.  CLAY,  MANAGER 
LONDON  :  FETTER  LANE,  B.C.  4 
NEW  YORK   :  G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

BOMBAY      1 

CALCUTTA  V  MACMILLAN  AND  CO.,  LTD. 

MADRAS      J 

TORONTO   :  J.  M.  DENT  AND  SONS,  LTD. 
TOKYO  :  MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAI8HA 


ALL  BIGHTS  RESERVED 


RECONSTRUCTION 

AND  THE  RENEWAL  OF  LIFE 
THREE  LAY  SERMONS 

BY 

W.  R  SOKLEY 

KNIGHTBRIDGE  PROFESSOR  OF  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY 

FELLOW  OF  KING'S  COLLEGE,  CAMBRIDGE 

AND  OF  THE  BRITISH  ACADEMY 


CAMBRIDGE 

AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 
1919 


PREFATORY  NOTE 

THE  two  earlier  of  these  discourses  were  preached 
on  13th  January  and  21st  July  1918,  and  formed 
part  of  a  series  of  sermons  by  laymen  given  in 
St  Edward's  Church,  Cambridge.  The  last  was 
preached  in  King's  College  Chapel  on  26th  January 
1919,  after  the  return  to  the  University  of  many 
undergraduates  who  had  been  serving  in  the  war. 
They  are  published  together  as  they  are  con- 
cerned with  one  aspect — the  religious  aspect — of 
a  problem  which  is  in  all  men's  minds  at  the 
present  time. 


CONTENTS 

I.      LIFE  ....  PAGE    1 

H.    FAITH     ....  18 

III.    VISION  34 


I 

LIFE 


For  as  we  have  many  members  in  one  body, 
and  all  members  have  not  the  same  office: 
so  we,  being  many,  are  one  body  in  Christ, 
and  every  one  members  one  of  another. 

Rom.  xii.  4,  5. 


"WE,  being  many,  are  one  body."  The  Apostle 
was  writing  to  men  whom  he  had  never  seen — to 
the  members  of  the  small  Christian  community  at 
Rome — and  he  said  that  he  and  they  together 
formed  one  body.  This  comparison  of  a  society  of 
men  to  the  living  body  of  an  animal,  with  its 
various  parts  and  organs,  was  not  new  even  when 
he  wrote,  and  it  is  so  common  now  that  we  are 
apt  to  miss  its  meaning.  There  are  controversies 
as  to  how  far  the  analogy  carries  us  when  it  is 
applied  to  any  community — to  the  family,  the 
township,  the  State,  or  the  Church.  With  these 
controversies  most  of  us  do  not  concern  ourselves. 
But  we  are  familiar  with  the  phrase  "the  body 
politic"  to  describe  the  State,  and  we  let  it  pass 


2  RECONSTRUCTION 

without  thinking;  and  we  have  even  come  to  use 
the  word  "body"  as  simply  a  noun  of  multitude, 
signifying  many,  for  any  collection  or  aggregate, 
so  that  we  are  accustomed  to  speak  of  a  "body  of 
men"  when  we  are  referring  only  to  some  hap- 
hazard gathering  of  human  beings. 

We  are  thus  in  danger  of  overlooking  the  mean- 
ing of  the  phrase  through  familiarity  with  the 
words.  But,  when  St  Paul  said  "We,  being  many, 
are  one  body,"  he  meant  exactly  what  he  said, 
neither  more  nor  less.  How  fraught  with  signifi- 
cance his  utterance  was  may  be  seen  from  the 
words  which  go  before  it  and  from  those  which 
follow  it.  It  is  the  centre  of  his  whole  doctrine  of 
the  Christian  Church  and  of  the  Christian  life. 
How  deeply  the  thought  had  struck  its  roots  into 
his  mind  is  shown  from  its  occurrence  in  his  letters 
not  to  Rome  only  but  to  the  Christian  communities 
elsewhere — at  Corinth,  at  Ephesus,  and  at  Colosse. 
Let  us  attempt  then  to  recover  some  fragments  of 
his  meaning  and  see  whether  it  applies  to  our  own 
time  as  well  as  to  his. 

The  analogy  had  been  used  before  to  describe 
the  nature  of  a  political  society  or  State;  but  he 
was  the  first  to  use  it  of  the  Christian  society  or 


LIFE  3 

Church,  and  in  doing  so  he  gave  it  a  new  depth  of 
meaning.  He  has  made  it  distinctively  Pauline. 
It  does  not  appear  to  have  been  used  by  the  other 
New  Testament  writers.  It  is  also  absent  from  the 
reported  sayings  of  our  Lord.  Perhaps  his  parables 
show  a  preference  for  illustrating  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  by  analogies  drawn  from  life  rather  than 
from  inanimate  things.  But  all  the  familiar 
experiences  of  daily  routine  are  put  under  contri- 
bution by  him :  most  of  all  the  human  relationships 
of  family  and  business  and  neighbourhood;  also 
the  life  of  the  fields  and  of  the  sea — the  mustard- 
seed,  the  vine  and  figtree  and  the  fishes ;  and  again 
the  lifeless  things  that  minister  to  men's  wants — 
the  garment,  the  piece  of  silver,  the  pearl  of  great 
price. 

As  long  as  the  Master  was  with  them,  the 
disciples  did  not  need  any  elaborate  explanation 
of  the  new  community  which  was  being  formed. 
He  was  there,  their  leader  and  guide,  to  direct  each 
step  and  answer  every  question  as  it  arose.  When 
his  bodily  presence  was  withdrawn  how  was  the 
void  to  be  filled?  It  was  of  the  very  essence  of  his 
mission  that  he  could  have  no  successor  as  an 
earthly  monarch  has,  or  as  other  religious  teachers 

1—2 


4  RECONSTRUCTION 

such  as  Mahomet  have  left  behind  them.  When 
the  shepherd  was  gone  how  were  the  flock  to  be 
led?  One  result  seems  to  have  been  that  the 
members  of  the  orphaned  church  were  drawn  more 
closely  together.  They  shared  their  worldly  goods 
with  one  another,  had  all  things  in  common,  and 
waited  for  the  second  coming  of  the  Lord  from 
heaven.  Thus  the  disciples  were  made  to  feel  that 
they  were  indeed  members  one  of  another,  and 
were  prepared  to  receive  the  words  of  St  Paul  that 
they,  being  many,  were  yet  one  body. 

St  Paul  does  not  discard  other  illustrations 
of  the  truth  which  he  has  in  view.  In  par- 
ticular he  often  uses  the  old  analogy  of  a 
building.  "Ye  are  God's  building1,"  he  tells  the 
Corinthians;  and  to  the  Ephesians  he  says  that 
they  "are  built  upon  the  foundation  of  the 
apostles  and  prophets,  Jesus  Christ  himself  being 
the  chief  corner  stone;  in  whom  all  the  building 
fitly  framed  together  groweth  unto  an  holy  temple 
in  the  Lord2."  This  was  the  old  and  approved 
comparison  sanctioned  by  the  Old  Testament 
writers:  "Behold,  I  lay  in  Zion  for  a  foundation  a 
stone,  a  tried  stone,  a  precious  corner  stone,  a 

1  1  Cor.  iii.  9.  2  Eph.  ii.  20. 


LIFE  .      5 

sure  foundation1."  The  comparison  suited  a  people 
for  whom  Jerusalem  was  the  city  of  promise  and 
whose  worship  centred  in  the  Temple.  It  was 
used  by  our  Lord  in  the  parable  of  the  house 
built  upon  a  rock;  and  we  find  it  again  in  the 
"city  which  hath  foundations2"  of  the  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews,  and  in  the  imaginative  description 
of  the  New  Jerusalem,  the  holy  city  descending 
out  of  heaven  from  God,  given  in  the  Revelation 
of  St  John.  But  our  Lord's  death  made  a  break 
with  Judaism ;  the  Temple  could  no  longer  be  the 
shrine  of  the  disciples'  worship;  even  Jerusalem 
ceased  to  be  the  home  to  which  they  must  look 
to  return.  These  things  remained  a  memory  and 
they  became  an  ideal:  Christians  were  to  fashion 
themselves  into  a  spiritual  temple;  a  new  Jeru- 
salem was  to  come  down  from  heaven.  And  so  it 
is  that  St  Paul's  language  overruns  the  old  analogy : 
he  speaks  of  the  Church  growing  into  a  holy  temple 
in  the  Lord.  Now  an  analogy  must  never  be 
pressed  beyond  the  point  which  it  illustrates. 
When  the  Church  is  spoken  of  as  a  building,  the 
emphasis  is  usually  on  its  stability,  and  hence  the 
stress  laid  on  the  foundation,  the  corner  stone, 

1  Isaiah  xxviii.  16.  -  Heb.  xi.  10. 


6  RECONSTRUCTION 

in  so  many  passages.  The  building  is  also  a  unity 
of  many  parts  and  may  be  taken  as  the  symbol  of 
the  household  or  community  which  it  shelters. 
But  the  analogy  conveys  nothing  as  to  the  life  of 
the  community;  and  so,  when  we  speak  of  its 
growth,  our  thought  is  really  seeking  out  another 
and  deeper  analogy — the  analogy  with  the  living 
body. 

Life  can  be  likened  only  to  life.  If  we  are 
looking  for  an  image  whereto  to  compare  the  life 
of  a  community  whether  civil  or  religious  we  can 
only  find  it  in  some  other  thing  which  is  also 
living — in  the  plant,  or  the  animal,  or  the  man. 
The  building  can  at  most  bring  before  us  the  shell, 
the  skeleton,  or  the  material  vesture  of  that  which 
lives.  Even  a  machine,  however  cunningly  devised, 
cannot  do  more  than  indicate  how  parts  are  put 
together  and  what  sort  of  work  they  can  turn  out. 
You  can  take  a  machine  to  pieces  and  put  it 
together  again;  but  you  cannot  do  that  with  the 
living  organism.  If  one  part  is  worn  or  broken 
you  can  replace  it  by  another  like  part  made  at  a 
factory;  but  it  is  not  so  with  the  animal  body. 
There  the  hurt  of  one  member  is  the  hurt  of  the 
whole:  it  cannot  be  scrapped  and  replaced  by  a 


LIFE  7 

new  member  of  the  same  kind.  The  life  comes 
from  within  and  lives  in  every  member,  so  that 
the  hurt  of  one  is  the  hurt  of  all  and  the  health 
of  the  whole  body  is  the  health  of  each  part.  As 
St  Paul  said  in  his  earlier  and  fuller  discourse  on 
this  topic  in  the  first  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians, 
"whether  one  member  suffer  all  the  members 
suffer  with  it;  or  one  member  be  honoured  all  the 
members  rejoice  with  it1."  And  the  same  holds  of 
the  life  of  the  community.  If  one  member  suffer 
all  the  members  suffer  with  it;  in  the  honour  of 
one  member  all  the  members  share.  The  more 
truly  a  number  of  men  form  a  community,  and 
not  a  mere  chance  collection  of  individuals  or 
battle-ground  of  selfish  interests,  the  more  fully 
is  the  doctrine  verified.  We  realise  it  better  now 
in  these  critical  days  of  war,  than  we  did  before 
in  the  piping  times  of  peace,  when  men  thought 
that  as  things  had  been  so  they  would  continue  to 
be  and  when  each  strove  to  lay  up  goods  for 
himself  for  many  years.  Now  we  know  that  we 
stand  or  fall  together:  the  suffering  of  one  part 
is  felt  by  all;  the  success  of  any  is  the  triumph 
of  all. 

1  1  Cor.  xii.  26. 


8  RECONSTRUCTION 

There  is  but  one  task  for  all — 
For  each  one  life  to  give. 
Who  stands  if  freedom  fall? 
Who  dies  if  England  live? 

And  the  crisis  often  forces  us  to  put  to  ourselves 
the  question,  Who  lives  if  England  die?  Most 
perhaps  would  be  inclined  to  answer  that  in  such 
a  case  life  would  have  nothing  of  value  to  offer. 
With  this  country  crushed  and  a  calculated  ruth- 
lessness  supreme  in  the  world,  we  should  not  care 
to  go  on  living,  because  something  had  been  killed 
in  the  soul  of  England,  and  in  our  own  souls — 
the  best  thing  which  is  its  and  ours — the  heritage 
of  freedom  and  the  hope  of  a  nobler  future  for  the 
spirit  of  man.  These  are  spiritual  things;  and  if 
the  spirit  is  dead,  in  man  or  in  society,  the  life 
has  gone  out. 

Here  we  touch  the  central  point  of  St  Paul's 
teaching.  It  is  the  common  life  which  makes  the 
body  a  unity  of  many  members.  Each  member 
has  its  own  work  to  do;  but  they  all  serve  one 
body  and  are  sustained  by  a  single  life.  "The  eye 
cannot  say  unto  the  hand,  I  have  no  need  of  thee ; 
nor  again  the  head  to  the  feet,  I  have  no  need  of 
you1";  but  each  should  have  the  same  care  one 

1  1  Cor.  xii.  21. 


LIFE  9 

of  another  so  that  there  "be  no  schism  in  the 
body1."  It  is  the  same  in  the  Church:  there  are 
"diversities  of  gifts,"  "differences  of  administra- 
tions," "diversities  of  operations2."  And  to  each 
his  own  duty:  "whether  prophecy,  let  us  prophesy 
according  to  the  proportion  of  faith ;  or  ministry, 
let  us  wait  on  our  ministering :  or  he  that  teacheth, 
on  teaching ;  or  he  that  exhorteth,  on  exhortation : 
he  that  giveth,  let  him  do  it  with  simplicity; 
he  that  ruleth,  with  diligence;  he  that  sheweth 
mercy,  with  cheerfulness3."  The  work  is  manifold, 
as  the  members  are  many;  but  they  all  spring  out 
of  one  spiritual  life.  For  "all  these  worketh  that 
one  and  the  self-same  Spirit,  dividing  to  every 
man  severally  as  he  will4."  In  this  spirit  is  the 
common  life  and  energy  that  animate  the  whole 
community,  so  that  through  it  diversities  of  gifts 
and  operations  conspire  to  the  common  good: 
"we,  being  many,  are  one  body  in  Christ." 

The  spirit  which  was  to  achieve  the  unity  and 
prove  the  power  of  the  Christian  community  was 
simply  the  spirit  of  Christ.  Whatever  the  differ- 
ences between  the  members  of  the  Church,  that 

1  1  Cor.  xii.  25.  2  1  Cor.  xii.  4-6. 

3  Rom.  xii.  6-8.  *  1  Cor.  xii.  1 1. 


10  RECONSTRUCTION 

spirit  held  them  together  by  a  common  memory 
and  sustained  them  by  a  common  hope.  The 
memory  was  the  earthly  life  and  death  and  resur- 
rection of  Jesus;  the  hope  was  the  expectation  of 
his  second  coming  in  the  clouds  from  heaven. 
What  must  have  been  their  feelings  as  year  after 
year  disappointed  this  hope  and  the  Lord  still 
delayed  his  coming?  This  we  cannot  tell.  But  we 
know  that  the  hope  in  its  old  form,  as  the  early 
disciples  held  it,  has  faded  and  died  away  with 
the  lapse  of  centuries.  We  know  also  that,  as  it 
disappeared  in  this  form,  the  deeper  elements  of 
St  Paul's  teaching  made  their  way  into  men's 
minds,  and  they  became  aware  of  a  spiritual  force 
that  might  regenerate  the  world  and  establish  on 
earth  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 

This  spiritual  hope  has  never  died  out  in  the 
Church,  and  it  has  never  entirely  deserted  man- 
kind. Sometimes  it  has  lain  dormant,  usually  in 
periods  of  external  comfort,  when  the  easy  ways 
of  the  world  obscured  it;  and  it  has  needed  the 
shock  of  danger  or  of  disaster  to  awaken  it  anew. 
In  the  world's  day-light  it  has  been  a  pillar  of 
cloud  which  men  could  easily  disregard,  but  in  the 
gloom  of  some  great  calamity  it  has  often  shone 


LIFE  11 

like  a  pillar  of  fire.  And  now,  in  the  midnight  of 
their  misery,  men  of  all  nations  turn  their  eyes 
towards  the  brighter  hope.  In  our  own  country 
the  air  is  full  of  the  expectation  of  the  new  world 
which  is  to  succeed  the  present  turmoil,  and  of 
preparation  for  it.  Every  one  is  called  upon  to 
take  his  share  in  this  preparation;  and  the  word 
Reconstruction  is  on  all  men's  lips.  Yet  the  very 
word  gives  us  pause  and  suggests  reflexions.  It  is 
the  Old  Testament  metaphor  of  the  building  that 
is  used,  not  the  New  Testament  metaphor  of  the 
living  body.  And  what  is  needed  at  the  present 
juncture  is  not  so  much  the  re-building  of  an 
edifice  as  the  renewal  of  life.  Has  it  ever  occurred 
to  us  that,  in  all  his  discourses  concerning  the 
coming  of  the  kingdom,  our  Lord  never  said, 
Society  must  be  reconstructed,  or  The  world  must 
be  rebuilt?  What  he  said  was,  Man  must  be  born 
again — born  of  the  spirit.  Unless  the  spirit  is  re- 
newed what  does  the  fashion  of  the  building  matter? 
They  begin  at  the  wrong  end  who  plan  first  the 
shape  and  size  of  the  house  without  giving  thought 
to  the  life  that  is  to  dwell  therein.  "  Except  the  Lord 
build  the  house  they  labour  in  vain  that  build  it1." 

1  Psalm  cxxvii.  1. 


12 

We  need  not  depreciate  the  importance  of  the 
"problems  of  reconstruction,"  as  they  are  called. 
But  the  first  problem  is  the  problem  of  the  Spirit. 
In  what  spirit  are  we  to  live  our  lives  in  the  days 
that  are  coming?  All  the  other  problems  follow 
upon  this.  If  we  could  solve  it,  their  solution  also 
would  be  easy.  If  we  really  sought  and  obtained 
the  kingdom  of  God  and  his  righteousness,  all 
other  things  would  be  added  to  us.  They  are  the 
accessories;  it  is  the  essence — the  spirit  of  the 
new  life.  St  Paul's  earliest  comparison  of  the 
Christian  community  to  a  living  body  is  followed 
immediately  by  his  great  hymn  in  praise  of  love. 
Love  is  the  spirit  of  Christ.  If  it  really  animated 
the  body  of  his  church  or  the  body  of  the  people, 
our  social  difficulties  would  be  insignificant. 
Without  it  we  do  not  overcome  these  difficulties; 
we  only  invent  palliatives  for  them ;  and  sometimes 
our  artifices  may  hinder  the  working  of  the  spirit 
of  love  which  they  should  encourage. 

When  Reconstruction  is  our  cry  we  form  plans 
which  are  large  and  simple,  and  in  forming  them 
we  are  often  under  the  power  of  catchwords.  A 
short  time  ago  equality  of  opportunity  was  de- 
manded ;  then,  when  the  toll  of  war  had  to  be  paid, 


LIFE  13 

it  was  equality  of  sacrifice.  There  is  often  reason 
behind  these  catchwords.  It  is  true  that  there  are 
many  inequalities  at  present  which  are  unnecessary 
and  hurtful  and  which  a  wiser  administration 
would  remove.  For  the  most  part  they  are  the 
legacy  of  a  time  of  great  mechanical  inventions, 
when  energetic  men  joined  in  the  race  for  wealth, 
using  their  simpler  fellow-mortals  as  tools  to 
minister  to  their  greed,  and  when  the  State 
supinely  held  aloof.  These  inequalities  are  a 
disease  of  the  body  politic,  and  a  healthy  con- 
stitution will  throw  them  off.  But  the  call  for 
complete  equality,  whether  of  opportunity  or  of 
sacrifice,  is  a  call  to  substitute  mechanism  for  life. 
All  the  bricks  in  a  house  may  be  of  the  same 
pattern  and  have  much  the  same  use.  But  society 
is  not  like  a  house.  It  is  more  like  the  living 
organism  in  which  unlikeness  in  the  members  is 
needed  for  the  unity  and  health  of  the  body.  This 
is  the  case  with  the  nation  also.  One  member  does 
what  other  members  cannot  do ;  but  all  may  serve, 
all  may  help  the  common  life.  The  ideal  of 
equality  is  legitimate  if  it  be  taken  as  a  protest 
against  those  who  evade  their  duties  or  try  to  make 
a  profit  out  of  the  necessities  of  their  country. 


14  RECONSTRUCTION 

But  it  is  unhealthy  and  disastrous  if  it  lead  men — 
as  it  sometimes  does — to  look  to  what  others  are 
doing,  instead  of  trying  to  do  all  they  can  them- 
selves, and  to  count  the  efforts  and  the  losses  of 
others  lest  haply  their  own  should  be  greater.  We 
cannot  really  measure  these  things;  and  when  we 
attempt  to  do  them  by  measure  we  kill  the  spirit 
both  of  enterprise  and  of  sacrifice.  No  life  worthy 
of  the  name  can  be  lived  by  the  ledger  of  profit 
and  loss : 

High  heaven  rejects  the  lore 
Of  nicely -calculated  less  or  more. 

We  are  all  sharers  in  a  larger  lif e  than  our  own ; 
and  the  more  fully  we  share  it — the  greater  our 
"measure  of  faith,"  as  the  Apostle  puts  it — the 
less  shall  we  be  inclined  to  count  our  own  efforts 
or  even  our  own  sufferings  as  an  expenditure 
which  must  not  exceed  the  similar  efforts  or 
sacrifices  of  others.  We  have  only  to  look  around 
and  abroad  to  see  that  equality  is  not  and  could 
not  be  a  feature  of  our  universe.  The  call  comes 
to  men  in  different  ways  and  for  different  work. 
It  is  not  possible,  for  instance,  to  compare  our 
own  small  discomforts  with  the  sufferings  of  the 
soldier  in  the  firing  line,  who  spends  his  days  in 


LIFE  15 

hourly  peril  of  death  till  the  supreme  moment 
comes  and  his  sacrifice  is  completed.  He  does  not 
give  by  measure :  he  gives  himself  to  that  greater 
life  which  includes  him  and  us:  if  our  freedom  is 
secured  it  will  be  through  his  sacrifice;  and  his 
example  should  show  us  how  to  use  that  freedom. 
He  is  still  a  member  of  that  spiritual  body  which 
we  are :  death  cannot  sever  him  from  it.  And,  when 
the  enterprise  is  over,  he  will  be  with  us  hi  spirit: 

When  Te  Deums  seek  the  skies, 
When  the  Organ  shakes  the  Dome, 

A  dead  man  shall  stand 

At  each  live  man's  hand — 
For  they  also  have  come  home. 

The  experiences  of  the  last  three  years  have 
brought  home  to  us,  as  we  never  felt  it  before,  the 
kinship  of  the  living  and  the  dead.  Those  who 
have  gone  before  have  both  part  and  lot  in  our 
inheritance.  They  will  have  nothing  to  say  about 
"plans  of  reconstruction";  but  we  shall  do  them 
wrong  unless  we  build  in  their  spirit:  and  their's 
was  not  the  calculating  spirit.  It  heard  the  call 
of  the  greater  life  to  which  it  belonged,  and  it 
obeyed  the  call  not  counting  the  cost. 

Last  Sunday,  in  this  church  and  in  every  church 


16  RECONSTRUCTION 

throughout  the  land,  a  solemn  service  of  inter- 
cession was  held  in  behalf  of  the  nation  and  empire 
in  this  time  of  war.  Our  prayer  was  that  God 
would  hasten  the  coming  of  his  kingdom — the 
kingdom  which  is  righteousness  and  peace  among 
men.  This  kingdom  must  begin  in  our  hearts  and 
be  established  through  our  wills.  Where  are  the 
signs  of  its  coming  ?  Have  the  tribulations  of  these 
last  years  worked  in  us  the  peaceable  fruits  of 
righteousness — the  righteousness  among  whose 
fruits  is  peace  among  men?  We,  whom  age  or 
infirmity  of  whatever  kind  has  debarred  from 
service  abroad,  have  been  spared  the  physical 
sufferings  endured  steadfastly  by  the  men  at  the 
front.  It  is  humiliating  to  think  that  grumblings 
should  be  heard  from  any  of  us  at  the  petty 
material  troubles  we  may  be  called  upon  to  bear. 
It  is  for  us  to  support  our  advanced  guard  not  only 
by  material  supplies  but  in  spirit;  and  it  is  also 
our  task  to  see  to  it  that  their  home-coming  shall 
be  to  a  country  made  worthy  of  the  safety  which 
they  have  bought  at  so  terrible  a  price.  The  men 
who  marched  away  left  a  great  trust  in  our  keeping. 
Let  it  not  be  said  that,  when  the  war  of  nations 
is  over,  they  are  to  return  to  a  war  of  classes  pre- 


LIFE  17 

pared  for  them  by  the  men  who  stayed  at  home. 
It  is  our  part  to  fight  and  overcome  the  forces  of 
selfishness  and  luxury  among  ourselves  which 
make  for  division,  and  to  foster  the  spirit  of  love, 
which  "seeketh  not  her  own,"  from  which  both 
the  body  politic  and  the  body  ecclesiastical  draw 
their  life.  In  this  spirit  we  shall  conquer,  and 
through  it  the  country  may  be  made  a  fit  dwelling- 
place  for  a  renewed  life.  But  in  this  spiritual 
conflict,  as  in  material  warfare,  victory  comes  only 
to  those  who  are  ready  and  strong  to  fight  and 
who  are  determined  to  fight  to  a  finish.  The  sword 
of  the  spirit  must  never  be  sheathed  till  the 
spiritual  cause  is  won. 

I  will  not  cease  from  mental  fight, 
Nor  shall  my  sword  sleep  in  my  hand, 

Till  we  have  built  Jerusalem 

In  England's  green  and  pleasant  land. 


II 

FAITH 


If  ye  have  faith  as  a  grain  of  mustard  seed, 
ye  shall  say  unto  this  mountain,  Remove 
hence  to  yonder  place;  and  it  shall  remove; 
and  nothing  shall  be  impossible  unto  you. 

Matt.  xvii.  20. 


THE  words  are  arresting,  provocative  even.  They 
may  easily  seem  to  make  too  great  a  demand  upon 
our  faith.  But  they  do  not  stand  alone.  The 
power  of  faith  is  often  emphasised  in  the  New 
Testament  in  terms  that  seem  to  set  no  bounds  to 
it.  Over  and  over  again  our  Lord  himself  appeals 
to  some  answering  faith  in  a  man's  soul,  to  which 
even  nature  yields,  and  without  which  his  own 
work  is  of  no  avail.  It  was  her  faith  that  made 
whole  the  woman  with  the  issue  of  blood1;  it  was 
because  of  the  greatness  of  her  faith  that  the 
prayer  of  the  Canaanitish  woman  was  heard  and 
her  daughter  restored  to  her2;  it  was  her  faith 
and  not  the  alabaster  box  that  saved  the  woman 

1  Matt.  ix.  22.  -  Matt.  xv.  28. 


FAITH  19 

which  was  a  sinner1 ;  when  the  two  blind  men  had 
their  sight  restored  to  them,  it  was  with  the 
words,  "According  to  your  faith  be  it  unto  you2." 
And  on  the  other  hand,  when  faith  failed  hi  his 
hearers,  Christ's  power  was  stayed:  in  his  own 
country,  where  the  prophet  was  without  honour, 
"he  did  not  many  mighty  works  there  because  of 
their  unbelief3." 

What  Christ  said  of  particular  occasions  his 
disciples  repeated  and  generalised.  Witness  the 
record  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  of  those 
"who  through  faith  subdued  kingdoms,  wrought 
righteousness,  obtained  promises,  stopped  the 
mouths  of  lions,  quenched  the  violence  of  fire, 
escaped  the  edge  of  the  sword,  out  of  weakness 
were  made  strong,  waxed  valiant  in  fight,  turned 
to  flight  the  armies  of  the  aliens4."  But  this 
triumphant  record  is  not  more  impressive  than  the 
simple  words  of  the  text — that  for  faith  nothing 
is  impossible,  that  it  can  remove  mountains. 

Is  all  this  to  be  put  down  to  Oriental  exaggera- 
tion? It  may  be  that  the  phrase  in  the  text  is 
imaginative,  but  its  meaning  is  not  merely 

1  Luke  vii.  50.  2  Matt.  ix.  29. 

3  Matt.  xiii.  58.  *  Heb.  xi.  33,  34. 

2—2 


20  RECONSTRUCTION 

Eastern.  "East  is  east  and  west  is  west" ;  yet  the 
twain  do  meet.  There  is  the  same  world  of  law 
and  order  surrounding  them,  and  human  nature 
is  one.  The  statement  is  a  paradox,  if  you  will — 
something  that  goes  flat  against  ordinary  opinion ; 
but  it  is  in  such  paradoxes  that  the  deepest  truth 
is  often  expressed.  The  meaning  is  clear:  that 
faith  gives  a  power  of  meeting  danger  and  over- 
coming difficulty,  and  that  there  are  no  limits 
which  we  can  assign  to  this  power.  The  words  in 
which  the  meaning  is  expressed  arrest  the  atten- 
tion, and  have  formed  the  subject  of  many  dis- 
courses. But  this  is  not  the  point  on  which  I  wish 
to  speak  to-day.  The  paradox  of  the  power  of 
faith  has  occupied  us  so  much  that  we  are  apt  to 
overlook  another  and  greater  paradox  in  this 
verse — the  paradox  of  the  nature  of  faith.  What 
is  that  faith  that  can  remove  mountains?  we 
ask.  And  the  answer  is  that  it  is  faith  "as  a  grain 
of  mustard  seed."  This,  too,  is  a  hard  saying ;  how 
are  we  to  understand  it? 

The  great  procession  of  the  faithful,  which 
moves  through  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  is 
composed  of  the  leaders  of  Israel  and  of  the  earlier 
heroes  who  connected  Israel  with  the  beginnings 


FAITH  21 

of  our  race.  We  see  there  Abel  and  Enoch  and 
Noah,  Abraham  and  the  patriarchs,  Moses  and 
the  judges,  David  also  and  Samuel  and  the 
prophets.  They  seem  to  march  with  waving 
banners  and  to  the  sound  of  trumpets.  They  are 
the  great  men  of  the  world,  the  mighty  of  the 
Lord,  called  up  to  witness  to  the  power  of  faith, 
though  the  promise  was  yet  to  come.  But  when 
our  Lord  speaks  of  faith,  he  chooses  humbler 
examples.  Not  many  mighty,  not  many  noble, 
are  cited  by  him.  He  does  not  select  the  learned 
class ;  what  he  meant  by  faith  he  found  lacking  in 
scribes  and  pharisees,  strict  as  was  their  orthodoxy. 
He  even  went  beyond  the  circle  of  Judaism,  to 
the  Roman  centurion  and  the  Canaanitish  woman ; 
beyond  the  pale  of  health  and  righteousness,  to 
the  weak  and  to  the  erring,  to  the  woman  with 
the  issue  of  blood  and  to  Mary  Magdalene.  He 
did  not  limit  it  to  the  grown-up  and  mature  in 
mind:  he  "called  a  little  child  unto  him,  and  set 
him  in  the  midst  of  them1." 

If  we  saw  these  pass  before  us  in  procession, 
how  different  would  it  be  from  that  other  pro- 
cession of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews !  The  alien 

1  Matt,  xviii.  2. 


22  RECONSTRUCTION 

and  the  ignorant,  the  blind  and  the  lame,  the 
paralytic  and  the  leper,  the  diseased  and  the 
harlot,  and  a  little  child  in  their  midst.  No  trum- 
pets herald  their  approach,  no  banners  wave 
along  their  line.  Unknown  to  the  world,  unnoticed 
in  the  crowd — men  without  name  and  women 
without  reputation — they  pass  with  feeble  steps 
before  unobservant  eyes.  Yet,  could  we  read  the 
heart,  a  secret  would  be  revealed  in  them  all 
which  makes  them  more  powerful  than  the  mighty, 
wiser  than  the  learned,  better  than  the  righteous. 
What  is  this  mystery  of  faith  that  so  subverts  all 
our  accustomed  values? 

It  is  not  produced  by  social  tradition— the 
powerful  selection  of  history  that  forces  a  com- 
munity to  struggle  for  its  life  or  to  disappear. 
This  is  not  the  source  of  faith — often,  indeed,  it  is 
its  grave.  Christ  found  faith  dead  in  the  Jewish 
Church,  loyal  as  its  members  were  to  their  tradi- 
tions. In  later  times  those  nearest  his  spirit  have 
often  had  cause  to  lament  its  decay  within  the 
Church  he  founded.  It  may  be  sought  in  vain  in 
learning  and  the  culture  of  the  intellect.  In  spite 
of  all  that  these  have  done  to  glorify  the  mind  of 
man,  the  new  wisdom  of  the  Greek  is  no  more  the 


FAITH  23 

source  and  guardian  of  faith  than  the  outworn 
tradition  of  the  Jew.  To  one  it  may  be  a 
stuinbling-block,  to  the  other  foolishness.  It  is 
not  even  the  offspring  of  the  normal  maturity  of 
human  powers,  as  these  are  ripened  by  experience 
of  self  and  of  the  world.  The  wise  and  prudent 
may  miss  it;  it  may  be  revealed  to  babes.  Deep 
in  the  heart  of  man,  deeper  than  the  heart  of  man, 
Christ  finds  its  roots.  So  deep,  that  he  goes  below 
human  nature  itself  for  an  instance  of  it — down  to 
the  very  germ  and  principle  of  natural  life.  The 
faith  to  which  nothing  is  impossible,  the  faith  that 
can  remove  mountains,  is  likened  to  the  faith 
possessed  by  a  grain  of  mustard  seed. 

Herein  lies  the  paradox.  There  is  something  on 
which  the  health  of  man's  soul  and  his  power  over 
the  world  depend;  and  we  ask,  Where  is  it  to  be 
found?  Let  us  see  it  at  its  purest  and  strongest. 
For  answer  we  are  given  an  example;  but  that 
example  is  not  taken  from  the  mind  of  any  upon 
whom  we  are  wont  to  look  as  prominent  or  power- 
ful— the  statesman,  or  warrior,  or  philosopher, 
the  king  or  the  priest.  It  is  not  even  taken  from 
the  mind  of  the  plain  man,  who  is  sometimes 
encouraged  to  believe  that  ignorance  is  a  guide  to 


24  RECONSTRUCTION 

perfection.  We  are  pointed  to  the  least  of  the  seeds 
of  the  field.  What  is  the  meaning  of  this  paradox? 
How  can  the  faith  of  a  man  be  likened  to  anything 
that  goes  on  in  the  mustard  seed? 

For  an  explanation  we  are  forced  back  upon 
something  very  simple,  very  primitive.  The  seed 
which  is  cast  into  the  ground  has  a  unique  faculty 
belonging  to  it :  it  can  live  and  grow.  But  it  is  not 
sufficient  for  itself.  Separate  it  from  its  sur- 
roundings in  nature,  and  it  will  only  shrivel  and 
die.  It  must  draw  its  strength  from  the  soil  in 
which  it  is  planted:  it  is  rooted  in  mother  earth, 
watered  by  the  rains  of  heaven,  warmed  by  the 
sun.  The  secret  of  its  life  is  its  own;  but  its 
strength  comes  from  the  greater  world  to  which 
it  belongs.  For  it  all  things  are  possible — all 
things,  that  is,  that  belong  to  its  nature.  It  is 
"the  least  of  all  seeds:  but  when  it  is  grown,  it  is 
the  greatest  among  herbs,  and  becometh  a  tree, 
so  that  the  birds  of  the  air  come  and  lodge  in  the 
branches  thereof1."  In  this  way  it  perfects  itself 
and  plays  its  allotted  part  in  the  world.  But  at 
each  stage  of  its  growth,  and  to  preserve  its 
vegetable  life,  it  draws  upon  the  sustenance  pro- 

1  Matt.  xiii.  32. 


FAITH  25 

vided  by  its  environment.  So  it  fulfils  its  nature, 
and  beyond  its  nature  it  neither  grows  nor  seeks 
to  grow.  And  thus  we  may  picture  its  life  from 
seed  to  tree — a  life  of  constant  reliance  on  the 
sustenance  of  mother  earth,  unbroken  by  discord 
or  doubt,  growing  from  strength  to  strength  in 
harmony  and  peace. 

It  is  this  reliance  on  something  greater  than 
oneself — something  which  supports  and  animates 
one's  own  life  and  gives  it  strength  to  achieve  and 
to  endure — that  is  the  bottom-character  of  faith. 
True,  the  faith  of  a  man  is  not  as  the  faith  of  a 
seed  or  a  tree.  Man,  it  may  be,  if  you  look  solely 
on  his  outward  frame,  is  but  a  reed  shaken  by  the 
winds;  but  yet,  as  Pascal  said,  he  is  a  thinking 
reed  and  therefore  greater  than  the  winds  that 
buffet  him.  In  the  whole  of  nature  he  stands 
apart,  in  it  and  yet  not  altogether  of  it:  not  a 
mere  child  of  nature,  but  thinking  his  own  thoughts 
and  choosing  his  own  way.  He  may  not  simply 
imitate,  he  cannot  easily  attain,  the  effortless 
harmony  which  he  sees  around  him  in  nature.  As 
he  looks  round  on  universal  nature  he  sees  it  lapped 
in  universal  law :  the  hill  bends  to  the  vaHey,  and 
the  tree  sways  in  the  wind;  life  and  death  them- 


26  RECONSTRUCTION 

selves  go  hand  in  hand;  and  each  natural  object 
follows  its  appointed  path,  as  the  stars  fulfil  their 
courses,  "still  quiring  to  the  young-eyed  cheru- 
bims." 

Peace  sleeps  the  earth  upon, 
And  sweet  peace  on  the  hill. 
The  waves  that  whimper  still 
At  their  long  law-serving 
(O  flowing  sad  complaint !) 
Come  on  and  are  back  drawn. 
Man  only  owns  no  king, 
Man  only  is  not  faint. 

For  earth  is  not  his  master,  nor  the  sole  nourisher 
of  his  life ;  he  has  other  laws  to  fulfil  than  those  of 
nature. 

Herein  lies  the  explanation  of  the  paradox. 
The  things  of  nature  move  as  their  own  nature 
dictates  and  in  unquestioned  dependence  on  their 
surroundings.  There  is  nothing  in  them  which 
disturbs  their  reliance  on  the  world  and  its  laws. 
They  do  not  strive  or  cry.  Their  faith,  if  we  may 
call  it  so,  is  untouched  by  doubt.  On  its  own  level 
it  is  more  absolute  than  any  faith  to  which  man 
attains.  But  then  it  is  on  a  far  lower  level  than 
his.  It  is  man's  privilege  to  look  out  on  the 
world  and  judge  it  as  if  it  were  something  to  which 
he  himself  did  not  belong.  The  order  of  nature 


FAITH  27 

« 

gives  no  sure  support  for  the  life  of  mind.  He 
must  strive  to  attain  that  reliance,  that  harmony, 
which  is  the  birthright  of  every  living  thing  that 
belongs  to  nature  only;  his  effort  and  frequent 
failures  are  uttered  in  his  cry.  A  man's  faith, 
therefore,  must  be  suited  to  his  character  as  a 
free  and  rational  being.  But  it  is  not,  on  that 
account,  something  specially  intellectual.  We 
must  not  confuse  faith  in  some  one  with  belief  that 
a  certain  doctrine  is  true.  The  latter  is  an  affair 
of  the  intellect  alone.  The  former  is  the  attitude 
of  the  whole  man,  when  he  trusts  another — often 
without  being  able  to  express  in  words  the  grounds 
for  that  trust. 

We  are  told  to  add  to  our  faith  virtue,  and  to 
virtue  knowledge1.  Faith  is  the  principle  of  life; 
virtue  and  knowledge  should  follow  upon  it;  and 
the  kind  of  faith  a  man  lives  by  is  shown  in  his 
character  and  in  his  way  of  thinking.  Thus  it  has 
come  about  that  those,  whose  special  duty  it  is 
to  be  guardians  of  the  faith,  have  always  sought 
at  the  same  time  to  promote  virtuous  conduct  and 
to  promulgate  sound  doctrine.  The  latter  has  been 
the  business  of  the  theologians.  They  have  worked 

1  2  Pet.  i.  5. 


28  RECONSTRUCTION 

out  a  system  of  doctrines  which  have  been,  and 
must  needs  be,  set  forth  in  terms  that  appeal  to 
the  intellect.  Thus  the  creeds  have  been  formed 
and  accepted  and  repeated. 

The  process  may  have  been  necessary  and  in 
some  cases  illuminating ;  but  it  has  reacted  upon 
the  faith  from  which  it  sprang,  and  these  reactions 
have  not  always  been  salutary.  We  are  apt  to 
forget  the  difference  between  the  living  faith, 
which  may  find  utterance  in  a  doctrine,  and  the 
mere  acceptance  of  that  doctrine  because  handed 
down  by  authority.  We  even  tend  sometimes  to 
forget  the  difference  between  believing  the  doctrine 
and  repeating  the  words  in  which  it  is  expressed. 
And  so  creeds  and  catechisms  come  to  be  learned 
by  rote  and  repeated  with  energy,  but  not  always 
with  understanding.  At  this  stage,  the  process 
may  show  submission  of  the  intellect;  it  is  cer- 
tainly not  knowledge;  it  is  very  far  from  being 
faith — such  as  we  have  found  faith  to  be;  and  it 
would  be  hard  to  show  that  it  is  of  any  value  at 
all.  There  is  no  virtue  in  a  form  of  words.  You 
cannot  remove  mountains  by  repeating  a  formula : 
that  is  the  way  of  magic,  not  the  way  of  religion. 
Yet,  are  we  sure  that  it  is  not  sometimes  our  way? 


FAITH  29 

Even  if  we  understand  the  meaning  and  our 
intellect  gives  assent  to  the  creed,  that  is  not  the 
same  thing  as  a  living  faith.  We  say  or  recite 
"I  believe  in  God  the  Father";  but  do  we  realise 
all  that  we  are  saying?  Is  it  a  real  experience  or 
only  an  intellectual  assertion?  Do  we  rest  our 
minds  and  wills  on  his  and  draw  on  his  love  for 
our  strength?  Or  are  we  simply  making  the  bald 
metaphysical  statement  that  in  our  opinion 
heaven  and  earth  had  an  almighty  architect? 
"And  in  Jesus  Christ  his  only  son  our  Lord."  Do 
we  realise  that  in  him  human  nature  touched  the 
divine  and  that  we  are  brought  into  union  with 
God  through  him  ?  and  have  we  ourselves  trodden 
any  part  of  the  way  which  he  opened?  Or  are  we 
only  making  a  number  of  statements  which  we 
have  learned,  in  which  fact  and  symbol  are 
curiously  entangled?  "He  descended  into  hell." 
Have  we  ourselves,  in  the  darkest  hour  of  our 
calamity,  found  him  beside  us  in  the  depths,  our 
comfort  and  support?  Or  are  we  merely  giving 
voice  to  strange  speculations  about  the  after-life? 
"He  ascended  into  heaven."  Do  our  souls  rise  to 
his?  "I  believe  in  the  Holy  Ghost."  Have  we 
felt  the  spirit  animating  our  souls,  renewing  our 


30  RECONSTRUCTION 

life,  giving  us  strength  to  do  and  suffer  all  things? 
If  so,  we  have  had  some  experience  of  faith;  if 
not,  might  we  not  as  well  go  on  discussing  the 
filioque  clause?  "The  Communion  of  Saints."  Is 
it  a  reality  for  us  or  a  name?  "The  forgiveness  of 
sins."  Have  we  experienced  it  or  the  need  of  it? 
"And  the  life  everlasting."  Does  it  really  affect 
our  present  conduct,  or  do  we  carry  on  on  the 
maxim  that  one  world  is  enough  at  a  time? 

We  might  almost  say  that  the  creed  has  two 
different  meanings — a  meaning  for  life  and  a 
meaning  for  the  intellect.  Only,  this  would  be  to 
draw  too  absolute  a  distinction;  for  intellect  is 
one  expression  of  life,  and  the  life  of  the  spirit  is 
never  without  understanding.  But  the  intellect 
tends  to  go  its  own  way  and  to  refine  upon  its 
notions  until  they  lose  all  touch  with  life  as  we 
experience  it.  These  refinements  may  have  some 
significance  for  the  rare  theological  reasoners  in 
whom  thinking  seems  to  have  usurped  the  place 
of  living;  but  they  lose  all  meaning  in  the  hands 
of  the  followers  who  repeat  or  confute  the 
shibboleths  of  their  predecessors.  Thus  theology 
outruns  religion,  and  dogma  takes  the  place  of 
faith. 


FAITH  31 

It  is  easy  to  emphasise  overmuch  the  intellectual 
side  of  faith,  and  the  Church  has  suffered  from  the 
tendency.  Christian  doctrine  is  made  into  a 
system  which  cannot  be  entered  by  those  un- 
trained in  intellectual  subtleties,  however  deep 
their  Christian  experience;  and,  as  an  offset  to 
this,  people  are  encouraged  to  think  that  learning 
a  formula  is  a  necessary  requisite  for  religion,  if 
not  a  sufficient  substitute  for  it.  And  again,  the 
process  is  apt  to  overlook  the  variety  of  the 
Christian  life,  and  to  fix  into  the  form  of  dogma 
characteristics  which  are  drawn  from  the  peculi- 
arities of  some  particular  historical  movement  or 
some  particular  class  of  minds.  The  doctrines, 
which  in  this  way  register  one  phase  of  experience 
only,  come  to  be  promulgated  as  essential  to  the 
faith,  and  ecclesiastical  authority  is  invoked  to 
confine  the  workings  of  the  spirit  within  the  four 
corners  of  an  intellectual  scheme.  This  is  one 
cause — perhaps  the  chief  cause — of  there  being 
divisions  among  us ;  and  the  conflict  of  the  creeds 
destroys  the  unity  of  the  faith. 

All  this  comes  of  laying  too  great  stress  on  the 
intellectual  side  of  faith — on  the  doctrines  which 
have  been  drawn  from  it  by  the  theologians.  It  is 


32  RECONSTRUCTION 

true  that  faith  has  and  must  have  an  intellectual 
side — like  everything  else  that  concerns  man. 
The  faith  of  a  man  cannot,  like  that  of  the  mustard 
seed,  consist  in  unthinking  dependence  on  some- 
thing else.  As  it  is  said,  "he  that  cometh  to  God 
must  believe  that  he  is1."  But  surely  we  are  not 
justified  in  saying  that  he  must  also  believe  some 
particular  system  of  doctrines  which  theologians 
have  distilled  into  the  creeds — for  controversy 
among  the  learned  and  to  the  confusion  of  the 
simple.  Would  not  the  apostles  themselves  have 
been  puzzled  if  they  had  been  asked  to  consent 
ex  animo  to  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  ?  The  Master 
took  his  examples  of  faith  from  humble  folk;  and 
the  Church  should  follow  his  lead,  lest  perchance 
it  shut  out  from  its  fold  any  of  those  who  are 
children  of  God  by  faith2.  He  never  demanded 
that  his  hearers  should  assent  to  theological 
doctrines  disconnected  with  their  own  experience. 
He  asked  faith  of  them;  he  needed  their  faith  to 
heal  and  save  them.  But  it  was  simply  faith  in 
God  as  the  father  and  giver  of  life  and  faith  in 
himself  as  the  love  and  power  of  God  made  mani- 
fest. This  is  the  essence  of  our  faith,  that  we 

1  Heb.  xi.  6.  2  Gal.  iii.  26. 


FAITH  33 

should  trust  in  the  spirit  of  God  which  enables 
us  to  do  and  bear  all  things.  And  this  is  the 
essence  of  Christian  doctrine,  that  we  should  know 
Christ  as  revealing  the  Father  and  reconciling  man 
with  God.  If,  going  beyond  these  simple  truths, 
we  seek  to  impose  intellectual  burdens  upon 
others,  we  should  bear  in  mind  that  there  are 
more  ways  than  one  of  making  the  word  of  God 
of  none  effect  through  our  traditions. 


S.  K. 


Ill 

VISION 


And  I  saw  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth: 
for  the  first  heaven  and  the  first  earth  were 
passed  away.  Rev.  xxi.  1. 


THE  New  Testament  as  it  has  been  handed  down 
to  us  closes  with  a  vision  of  the  last  things.  Visions 
of  this  sort  were  common  in  the  writings  of  the 
later  centuries  of  the  old  era  and  in  the  beginning 
of  our  own.  Within  the  Canon  they  stretch  back 
to  the  Book  of  Daniel  and  they  reach  a  climax  in 
the  Revelation  of  St  John ;  and  they  are  recognised 
as  forming  a  special  type  of  literature.  But  this 
type  was  only  a  concentrated  expression  of  a 
factor  which  belonged  to  the  prophetic  spirit  and 
appealed  to  the  popular  mind.  It  was  character- 
istic of  the  Hebrews  as  a  race  that  they  looked 
forwards  not  backwards.  Their  golden  age  was  not 
in  the  past  but  in  the  future.  They  believed  that 
God  had  made  a  Covenant  with  them  and  that  he 
was  preparing  them  for  its  fulfilment.  They  were 


VISION  35 

always  on  the  march  to  a  promised  land,  from  the 
day  that  Abraham  went  out  not  knowing  whither 
he  went.  His  faith  was  great  but  his  vision  was 
feeble.  Afterwards  the  vision  grew  in  definiteness, 
sometimes  losing  touch  with  the  faith  that  inspired 
it.  At  first  the  country  which  the  people  sought 
was  a  place  of  material  comforts,  a  land  flowing 
with  milk  and  honey.  Time  and  experience  altered 
the  outlook.  Their  Zion  was  to  be  an  inheritance 
of  the  righteous,  a  city  of  God,  and  God  himself 
was  to  lead  them  there.  When  the  nation  was 
crushed  by  a  series  of  disasters,  they  still  looked 
for  a  Redeemer  who  was  to  restore  and  extend  their 
prosperity.  But  when  the  Messiah  came,  as  the 
kingdom  comes,  without  observation,  and  himself 
suffered  arid  died,  they  were  no  longer  able  to 
trust  in  the  slow  evolution  of  their  national  destiny : 
they  looked  for  something  catastrophic — a  violent 
overthrow  of  all  earthly  powers  and  a  speedy 
coming  of  the  Son  of  Man  in  the  clouds  from 
heaven.  All  the  resources  of  an  Oriental  imagina- 
tion were  utilised  to  depict  the  struggle  of  the 
higher  and  the  lower  powers  for  the  mastery  of 
man,  until  the  final  defeat  of  the  powers  of  evil: 
and  then  Jerusalem  was  not  to  be  re-built  on 

3—2 


36  RECONSTRUCTION 

earth  but  should  come  down  new  from  heaven, 
and  the  everlasting  reign  of  righteousness  would 
begin.  For  this  consummation  they  awaited  in 
eager  expectation :  and,  in  spite  of  the  long  periods 
of  time  through  which  the  struggle  was  pictured 
as  lasting,  the  book  ends  with  the  prayer  and  the 
promise  that  the  Lord  would  come  quickly. 

In  this  and  similar  visions  we  must  keep  our 
eyes  on  the  essentials.  But  it  is  the  accidental 
details  that  strike  us  first;  and  generations  of 
commentators  have  flattered  curious  minds  with 
vain  predictions.  Our  imagination  is  attracted  by 
the  scenery  of  the  picture :  it  follows  the  incidents 
of  the  combat,  and  dwells  on  the  dazzling  structure 
of  the  city  that  is  to  descend  from  heaven.  Yet 
all  these  things  are  merely  externals.  The  ground 
of  contention  and  of  hope  lies  far  deeper.  It  is  not 
the  scarlet  robe  but  the  abomination  it  covers  that 
gives  its  wearer  her  temporary  power  and  leads  to 
her  final  overthrow.  And  the  white  horse  is  but 
an  emblem  of  the  purity  of  him  who  was  called 
Faithful  and  True  and  who  judged  and  made  war 
in  righteousness.  Throughout  the  whole  vision  we 
are  confronted  by  the  old  alternative  of  Mount 
Gerizim  and  Mount  Ebal — on  the  one  hand  life 


VISION  37 

and  good,  on  the  other  death  and  evil1.  The  seer 
has  the  world -old  conflict  before  his  eyes,  he  sees 
it  come  to  an  issue,  and  he  has  confidence  in  the 
final  triumph  of  the  good.  It  is  the  same  with  his 
view  of  what  is  to  happen  after  the  battle  is  won. 
The  jewelled  walls  and  golden  pavements  of  the 
New  Jerusalem  may  leave  us  cold:  they  are  the 
toys  of  an  earlier,  more  child-like  mind.  But  we 
need  the  reminder  that  after  war  comes  peace, 
that  the  victory  over  evil  means  a  reign  of 
righteousness,  that  for  him  that  overcometh  glory 
is  reserved. 

It  is  possible  certainly  to  dissociate  the  two 
things — the  insight  into  spiritual  forces  and  the 
vision,  or  pretended  vision,  of  future  events.  And 
they  have  often  been  divorced.  A  superstitious 
populace  is  less  easily  impressed  by  insight  into 
life  than  by  a  picture  of  things  to  come.  It  was 
the  latter  that  first  attracted  them  to  the  prophet ; 
they  treated  him  as  a  seer  and  called  him  by  that 
name2.  It  was  always  hard  to  make  them  listen 
to  the  message  with  the  same  zeal  as  they  would 
consult  the  vision.  And  men  were  to  be  found  in 
the  schools  of  the  prophets  who  would  give  them 

1  Deut.  xxx.  15.  2  1  Sam.  ix.  9. 


38  RECONSTRUCTION 

what  they  asked  for — chaff  instead  of  wheat — 
and  minister  to  curiosity  without  feeding  the  soul. 
"Yea,  they  are  prophets  of  the  deceit  of  their 
own  heart;  which  think  to  cause  my  people  to 
forget  my  name  by  their  dreams1."  Perhaps  the 
greatest  enemy  of  true  religion  has,  all  along,  been 
the  claim  to  vision  which  is  not  based  on  an 
understanding  of  the  really  vital  forces  of  history. 
Especially  in  periods  of  crisis  and  calamity, 
troubled  minds  have  always  been  eager  to  see 
behind  the  veil;  and,  from  the  time  of  the  witch 
of  Endor  to  the  London  medium  of  our  own  day, 
they  have  found  instruments  willing  to  pierce  it 
for  them — at  a  price.  The  test  of  all  these  revela- 
tions is  their  result.  They  picture  the  world 
beyond  as  a  pale  reflexion  of  the  material  condi- 
tions of  the  present.  And  they  show  no  genuine 
vision,  for  they  have  no  real  insight  into  the 
moral  forces  which  now  fight  for  mastery  and  in 
which  lies  the  promise  of  the  future. 

There  is  all  the  difference  between  the  two 
kinds  of  vision.  One  is  the  prophetic  vision,  which 
comes  from  insight  into  the  spiritual  forces  which 
rule  the  world.  It  gives  visible  form  to  spiritual 

1  Jer.  xiiii.  26,  27. 


VISION  39 

ideas  because  it  has  been  able  to  discover  the 
significance  of  actual  events.  The  other  deals  with 
more  superficial  aspects.  It  draws  from  external 
features  and  projects  a  fancy  picture  into  the 
future.  The  one  gives  promise  of  a  higher  life; 
the  other  has  no  meaning  beyond  the  material 
things  which  it  represents. 

In  the  perplexities  of  the  present  time  our  way 
will  be  guided  by  the  vision  of  things  hoped  for; 
and  it  will  be  well  with  us  only  if  the  vision  is  of 
the  former  kind — if  it  is  based  upon  insight  into 
the  forces  of  righteousness.  Again  and  again, 
during  these  four  and  a  half  years  we  were  en- 
couraged by  the  belief  that  we  were  fighting  on 
the  side  of  right  and  that  the  right  would  in  the 
end  prevail.  We  were  animated  by  this  belief 
when  we  first  took  up  the  gage  of  battle ;  we  were 
sustained  by  it  through  long  days  of  disappointed 
hope;  and  now  our  faith  has  been  justified  by  the 
issue. 

Still  greater  enterprise  lies  before  us.  The 
problems  of  peace  are  more  difficult  than  those  of 
war.  The  trumpet  which  summoned  to  battle 
gave  no  uncertain  sound,  and  the  nation  answered 
it  as  one  man:  other  interests  were  overwhelmed 


40  RECONSTRUCTION 

by  the  insistent  question  of  life  or  death  for  the 
country.  We  have  now  to  restore  the  life  that  has 
been  saved,  to  re-build  a  world  better  than  the  old ; 
and  our  advisers  have  many  voices  but  fail  to  give 
one  clear  call.  We  are  even  in  danger  of  forgetting 
the  faith  by  which  we  conquered.  That  faith  was 
two-fold :  that  the  things  of  greatest  worth  in  life 
are  not  material  things  but  moral  and  spiritual, 
and  that  these  moral  and  spiritual  values  are  also 
in  the  long  run  the  strongest  forces.  The  imponder- 
ables gather  weight  and  gain  the  mastery  over 
the  merely  material  and  ponderable.  So  it  has 
happened;  so  it  will  happen  again.  As  we  face 
the  shadowy  future  our  faith  in  this  must  be  pure 
and  our  courage  firm  to  risk  putting  our  faith  to 
the  test.  In  the  effort  after  reconstruction,  whether 
in  State,  in  Church,  or  in  College,  we  should 
follow  the  spiritual  vision. 

But  let  us  not  deceive  ourselves.  There  is 
another  vision  than  this — a  vision  that  obscures 
these  higher  values — and  there  are  many  who 
follow  it.  It  is  no  easy  peace  that  lies  before  us, 
but  a  new  conflict — a  greater  conflict  than  that 
from  which  we  are  emerging,  a  conflict  of  ideals. 
Are  the  spiritual  values  truly  the  greatest  things 


VISION  41 

in  life  or  are  they  fanciful  and  unreal,  as  compared 
with  the  solid  facts  of  material  comfort?  In  their 
thoroughgoing  way  the  Continental  Socialists  have 
faced  this  question,  and  the  great  majority  of 
them  have  adopted  a  frankly  materialistic  view 
of  what  is  worth  having  in  life.  Their  creed  has 
been  elevated  into  a  philosophy,  and  it  is  supported 
by  many  scholars  who  see  in  human  life  only  a 
struggle  for  material  gain,  who  put  forward  an 
economic  interpretation  of  history,  and  who  base 
their  vision  for  the  future  on  this  reading  of  the 
past.  The  same  tendency  is  not  so  hardened  or  so 
widespread  in  our  own  country,  but  it  is  not 
negligible,  and  with  us  also  the  secular  interpre- 
tation of  life  threatens  to  displace  the  religious. 

This  tendency  is  not  a  characteristic  of  one  class 
of  society  only;  it  belongs  to  all  classes,  and  to 
almost  everyone  in  some  portions  of  his  activity. 
There  is  indeed  a  counsel  of  perfection,  "Seek  ye 
first  the  kingdom  of  God  and  his  righteousness; 
and  all  these  things  shall  be  added  unto  you1." 
But  it  is  not  often  followed,  even  by  those  who 
applaud  it.  We  are  more  inclined  to  make  sure  of 
the  other  things,  before  troubling  about  the  king- 

1  Matt.  vi.  33. 

3—5 


42  RECONSTRUCTION 

dom  and  its  righteousness.  It  would  seem  to  be 
the  law — or  paradox,  if  you  will — of  human  life 
that  the  higher  values  can  make  their  appeal  to 
men  only  after  some  measure  of  the  lower  values 
has  been  reached.  And  then  the  struggle  for  these 
lower  but  necessary  values  becomes  so  keen  that 
men  can  think  of  nothing  else.  It  is  of  the  very 
nature  of  material  things  to  engender  strife.  The 
lower  the  good,  the  more  contentious  it  is. 
Material  goods  are  exclusive  in  their  possession 
and  in  their  enjoyment.  What  one  man  has, 
another  wants  and  tries  to  get.  It  is  not  so  with 
the  goods  of  the  mind.  Truth  and  beauty  and 
goodness  can  be  shared  by  all.  Their  possession 
by  one  man  helps  instead  of  hindering  their 
attainment  by  others.  They  are  not  like  material 
goods  subject  to  the  law  of  diminishing  returns; 
they  follow  a  law  of  their  own — a  law  of  increasing 
returns.  The  more  men's  affections  are  set  on  these 
higher  goods,  the  truer  will  be  their  appreciation  of 
the  lower  goods  of  life  which  form  their  necessary 
substratum ;  the  readier  also  will  they  be  to  carry 
out  a  distribution  of  them  which  is  juster  and 
more  generous  than  that  which  has  resulted  from 
our  selfish  competitive  system.  Thus,  in  the  end, 


VISION  43 

our  industrial  salvation  will  depend  on  the  char- 
acter of  the  men  whom  the  new  order  produces 
and  on  the  estimate  they  form  of  what  things  are 
of  greatest  worth  in  life. 

The  Church  has  from  of  old  been  the  guardian 
of  the  higher  spiritual  values — on  which  the 
measurement  of  all  other  values  depends.  It  does 
not  any  longer  control  learning  and  science, 
education  and  industry  in  the  way  it  once  did. 
Yet  it  cannot  hold  aloof  from  these  interests,  lest 
religion  be  divorced  from  life.  In  particular  it  is 
concerned  with  the  things  of  the  mind,  and  it  has 
courageously  raised  the  question  of  its  own  relation 
to  the  intellectual  life  of  the  people.  When  the 
late  Dr  Benson  was  appointed  to  the  see  of 
Canterbury,  his  friend  Dr  Hort  wrote  him  a 
remarkable  letter.  It  was  not  exactly  a  letter  of 
congratulation.  He  called  it  a  letter  of  sympathy. 
It  was  also  a  note  of  warning — a  warning  of  rocks 
ahead.  "The  danger  for  the  English  Church/'  he 
wrote,  "is  its  calm  and  unobtrusive  alienation  in 
thought  and  spirit  from  the  great  silent  multitude 
of  Englishmen1."  Thirty-six  years  have  passed 
since  these  words  were  written,  and  in  the  last 
1  F.  J.  A-  Hort'*  Lift  and.  Letter*,  iL  290. 


44  RECONSTRUCTION 

years  of  this  period  the  Church  has  had  a  great 
opportunity.  The  most  devoted  and  clear-sighted 
of  its  younger  clergy  have  accompanied  the  great 
silent  multitude  to  the  field  of  battle.  They  have 
stood  beside  them  and  ministered  to  them  in  the 
elemental  crises  of  danger  and  violent  death,  when 
the  conventional  hypocrisies  fall  away  from  a  man 
like  a  garment.  They  have  seen  their  souls  naked. 
And  they  have  come  home  and  told  us  how  far 
the  alienation  in  thought  and  spirit  has  gone. 

The  Archbishops  too  have  not  been  idle.  They 
have  appointed  a  number  of  committees  to  enquire 
into  the  whole  life  and  work  of  the  Church;  and 
these  committees  have  issued  a  series  of  most 
instructive  reports.  One  of  the  committees  has 
dealt  with  this  particular  subject.  It  confirms  the 
opinion  of  the  chaplains  and  investigates  the 
causes  of  the  alienation.  "While  there  has  been 
an  increase  in  the  intellectual  attainments  of  the 
people,"  they  say,  "the  intellectual  capacity  and 
equipment  of  the  clergy  have  not  increased  in  a 
like  proportion."  "There  has  been  a  tendency  to 
contrast  the  intellectual  with  the  spiritual,  instead 
of  realising  that  God's  spirit  works  in  man  by 
illuminating  all  his  powers,  and  that  the  highest 


VISION  45 

spiritual  work  is  also  intellectual.  The  result  has 
been  a  depreciation  and  a  fear  of  the  honest 
operation  of  the  intellect."  Hence  "intellectual 
sloth  and  indecision"  and  "lack  of  intellectual 
courage,"  while  "the  interest  of  the  clergy  is  often 
drawn  away  to  questions  of  secondary  importance. 
They  are  engrossed  in  minor  matters  of  Church 
tradition,  and  do  not  speak  in  a  real  and  living 
manner  on  great  and  fundamental  problems  which 
are  exercising  the  minds  of  many  people  at  the 
present  day 1."  "  Science  has  much  learning  behind 
it ;  the  weight  of  learning  in  the  Church  of  England 
is  inadequate,  and  therefore  the  Church's  authority 
is  weakened2."  "The  interest  of  the  Church  has 
been  turned  from  the  intellectual  problems3"; 
"fewer  able  men  seek  ordination4";  and  their 
position  in  the  universities  is  weakened. 

What  is  the  reason  of  this  divorce  between 
intellect  and  the  Church?  The  Committee  give 
several  reasons,  but  they  scarcely  venture  to  touch 
upon  one  which  is  surely  not  the  least  important. 
They  refer  to  "the  uncertainty  that  young  men 
feel  about  the  truth  of  Christianity  and  matters 

1  Report  of  the  Archbishops'  First  Committee,  p.  8. 

2  Ibid.  p.  10.  3  Ibid.  p.  8.  Ibid.  p.  9. 


46  RECONSTRUCTION 

of  theology" — "a  feeling  of  uncertainty  which 
often  checks  very  suitable  men  whose  spiritual 
aims  dispose  them  to  seek  ordination1."  But  they 
fail  to  draw  a  necessary  distinction — a  distinction 
which  may  be  expressed  in  their  own  words  as 
that  between  "the  truth  of  Christianity"  and 
"matters  of  theology."  They  lament  the  decay  of 
intellectual  attainments  and  of  intellectual  interests 
among  the  clergy  and  the  weakening  of  their 
influence  in  the  universities.  They  lament  also  the 
indisposition  to  take  orders  on  the  part  of  able 
men  whose  spiritual  aims  fit  them  for  office  in 
the  Church.  But  they  do  not  face  the  question 
whether  these  results  may  not  be  due,  in  part  at 
least,  to  the  fact  that  the  clergy  are  expected  to 
give  assent  not  merely  to  "  the  truth  of  Christi- 
anity," but  also  to  certain  "matters  of  theology" 
contained  in  the  creeds  and  articles  which  theo- 
logians and  politicians  from  the  second  century  to 
the  sixteenth  have  formulated  as  the  faith  of  the 
Church.  They  speak  as  if  the  whole  body  of 
Church  doctrine  were  so  organically  united  that  it 
must  be  accepted  or  rejected  en  bloc.  Yet  they 
have  themselves  pointed  out  that  Christian  theo- 

1  Report  of  the  Archbishops'  First  Committee,  p.  9. 


VISION  47 

logy  was  affected  at  each  critical  stage  of  its  growth 
by  the  current  philosophy  of  the  day.  It  adopted 
not  only  the  language,  but  also  the  mode  of  thought, 
at  one  period  of  the  Alexandrian  school,  at 
another  period  of  Aristotle1. 

To  the  student  of  science  and  philosophy  also 
these  schools  serve  as  an  inspiration.  But  he  can 
prove  himself  worthy  to  enter  into  their  labours 
only  if  he  has  complete  freedom  to  revise  their 
results  in  the  light  of  wider  experience  and  inde- 
pendent reflexion.  In  thought  as  in  life  growth 
implies  both  selection  and  rejection.  Is  the 
thought  of  the  Church  to  stand  aloof  from  this 
law?  Is  it  to  be  bound  for  ever  to  the  formulae 
devised  by  its  leaders  when  philosophy  was  less 
complex,  when  science  was  in  its  infancy,  and  when 
modern  historical  methods  were  as  yet  undreamed 
of?  In  this  matter  the  Church  of  England  is  at 
the  cross-roads.  It  may  hold  to  its  traditions  and 
maintain  a  system  of  doctrine  which  is  out  of 
touch  with  the  results  of  the  intellect  in  other 
departments.  Or,  on  the  other  hand,  it  may  have 
faith  in  the  unity  of  truth  and  courage  to  prove 
all  things — even  old  traditions — and  to  hold  fast 

1  Report,  pp.  19,  20. 


48  RECONSTRUCTION 

only  that  which  is  good.  The  Church  is  not  being 
called  upon  to  discard  the  doctrines  in  which  men 
of  old  expressed  their  faith.  Perhaps  the  time  is 
not  yet  ripe  for  formulating  beliefs.  But  it  may 
well  be  asked  to  revise  its  attitude  to  them  and  to 
discriminate  between  their  historical  and  their 
present  significance.  Perhaps  it  will  also  listen  to 
the  modest  plea  of  an  Army  Chaplain  that  the 
consciences  of  the  clergy  should  be  relieved  from 
what  he  calls  "the  insincerity  of  being  concerned 
with  the  Thirty-nine  Articles1."  Courage  is  needed 
to  face  these  questions ;  but,  if  they  are  faced  with 
courage,  then  we  may  look  forward  to  the  day 
when  the  prophecy  will  be  fulfilled  and  the  Church 
shall  again  be  called  the  City  of  Truth2,  the 
inspirer  and  guardian  of  all  man's  spiritual 
interests. 

The  same  problem  concerns  us  as  a  College.  By 
our  Statutes  we  form  a  House  dedicated  to 
education,  religion,  learning,  and  research.  Time 
was  in  our  history  when  all  these  interests  might 
be  served  by  each  of  the  fellows.  But  the  field  has 
grown  in  extent,  and  every  part  of  it  needs  more 

1  N.  S.  Talbot,  The  Church  in  the  Furnace,  p.  287. 

2  Zech.  viii.  3. 


VISION  49 

intensive  culture;  and  each  of  us,  absorbed  in  his 
own  special  work,  is  apt  to  become  indifferent  to 
that  of  his  neighbour.  The  specialisation  is 
necessary;  but  it  has  manifest  drawbacks  even  in 
a  purely  intellectual  regard.  We  need  to  be 
constantly  reminded  of  the  unity  of  spirit  which 
animates,  or  should  animate,  every  branch  of 
academic  work,  and  of  the  unity  of  the  object 
which  it  seeks.  All  alike  are  in  quest  of  truth; 
and  the  only  atmosphere  in  which  this  quest  can 
live  is  freedom — freedom  of  enquiry,  freedom  of 
belief,  freedom  of  teaching.  If  the  theologian  is 
in  fetters  from  which  the  man  of  science  and  the 
philosopher  are  free,  this  unity  of  spirit  is  lost. 
But  if  the  Archbishops'  Committee  are  right  and 
this  same  atmosphere  of  freedom  is  "essential  to 
sound  theological  development1,"  then  the  intel- 
lectual and  the  religious  life  of  the  College  may  be 
animated  by  a  common  spirit. 

And  not  in  spirit  only  but  also  in  the  object  of 
their  quest  there  is  a  profound  unity  beneath  all 
superficial  differences.  However  narrow  may  be 
the  sphere  of  any  one  man's  intellectual  labours, 
he  is  working  on  the  structure  of  the  great  fane 

1  Report,  p.  21. 


50  RECONSTRUCTION 

of  Truth,  and  he  may  be  inspired  by  a  vision  of 
the  fabric  of  which  he  is  a  builder.  In  the  south- 
western corner  of  this  Chapel,  on  one  of  the 
Tudor  roses  which  decorate  it,  there  may  be  seen, 
in  the  centre  of  the  flower  and  in  place  of  the 
stamens,  a  sculptured  image  of  the  Virgin.  The 
nameless  workman  who  executed  it  had  been  told 
off  to  carve  a  rose;  and  he  did  so.  But  his  eyes 
caught  a  glimpse  of  the  higher  vision  which  he  was 
helping  to  shape  in  stone ;  and  under  his  hands  the 
emblem  of  the  Tudors  became  a  symbol  of  our 
Lady  in  whose  honour  the  Chapel  was  founded. 
Which  thing  is  an  allegory.  From  the  most 
concentrated  devotion  to  a  minute  problem,  it  is 
right  and  necessary  that  the  mind  should  rise 
sometimes  to  the  wider  view  and  see  the  particular 
subject  in  the  light  of  the  whole  system.  This 
much  the  intellect  needs  for  its  own  sake.  But  no 
man  is  saved  by  the  intellect  alone,  nor  can  the 
man  of  intellect  stand  in  isolation  from  his  fellows. 
He  who  has  escaped  out  of  the  cave  of  ignorance 
and  false  opinion  into  the  light  of  the  sun  feels  the 
duty  laid  upon  him  of  guiding  others  on  the  way 
he  came.  For  this  reason  education  is  combined 
with  learning  and  research  in  the  vocation  of  the 


VISION  51 

scholar.  He  should  be  a  giver  as  well  as  a  getter. 
Knowledge  alone  cannot  emancipate  the  spirit  of 
man  until  it  is  freed  from  the  taint  of  selfishness 
and  united  with  the  spirit  of  love,  which  is  the 
spirit  of  Christ. 

We  stand  in  the  valley  of  decision,  and,  accord- 
ing as  we  turn  to  one  hand  or  the  other,  the 
future  will  be  affected  for  generations  to  come. 
On  the  one  hand  the  prospect  before  us  is  a  battle 
of  conflicting  interests — of  nation  against  nation, 
of  class  against  class,  of  religion  against  knowledge. 
On  the  other  hand  is  the  vision  of  diverse  activities 
united  by  a  common  spirit  and  pressing  towards 
the  same  goal.  Who  has  eyes  to  discern  the  vision 
and  power  to  bring  it  into  being?  To  those  who 
went  out  from  among  us  at  their  country's  call, 
not  counting  their  lives  dear  in  the  service  of  so 
great  a  cause — to  them  we  have  looked  to  build 
a  better  England.  Faithful  unto  death,  many  of 
them  return  no  more.  But  those  whom  God  has 
spared  to  come  back  to  us  bring  with  them  an 
experience  of  reality  wedded  to  the  ideals  and 
energy  of  youth ;  while  others,  too  young  as  yet  to 
grasp  the  sword,  have  lived  in  the  light  of  a  great 
example  and  have  learned  that  love  is  better  than 


52  RECONSTRUCTION 

life.  Through  their  labours  I  see  arise  a  mighty 
nation,  its  spirit  purified  by  fiery  trials,  the  home 
of  ordered  freedom  and  a  surety  for  the  world's 
peace,  with  renewed  strength  pressing  towards  the 
mark  for  the  prize  of  its  high  calling.  I  see  a  living 
Church,  loyal  to  the  gospel  of  the  Master  whose 
life  was  the  light  of  men,  no  longer  suspicious  of 
the  free  course  of  knowledge,  but  itself  the  inspirer 
of  all  things  pure  and  lofty.  And  I  see  a  great 
College,  the  servant  of  God  and  of  the  people,  yet 
knowing  no  master  in  its  loyalty  to  truth,  pene- 
trating into  the  secrets  of  nature  and  of  mind, 
mindful  alike  of  the  unity  of  knowledge  and  of 
its  human  worth,  and  year  by  year  sending  forth 
its  sons  to  be  leaders  in  thought  and  in  action 
throughout  the  world.  Is  it  an  unsubstantial 
vision?  "When  the  Lord  turned  again  the  cap- 
tivity of  Zion,  we  were  like  them  that  dream." 
But  such  dreams  have  a  way  of  making  them- 
selves true. 

And  now  the  time  returns  again : 

Our  souls  exult:  and  London's  towers 

Receive  the  Lamb  of  God  to  dwell 

In  England's  green  and  pleasant  bowers. 

CAMBRIDGE:  PRINTED  BY  J.  B.  PEACE,  M.A.,  AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 


Recently  published 

BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 

MORAL  VALUES  AND  THE  IDEA  OF  GOD. 
The  Gifford  Lectures  delivered  in  the  University 
of  Aberdeen  in  1914  and  1915.  Demy  8vo. 
pp.  xix  +  534.  16s  net. 

"An  extraordinarily  fascinating  book." 

The  Saturday  Review 

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is  worked  out,  and  the  lucid  exposition  that  leads  the  reader 
from  stage  to  stage ...  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  these 
Gifford  Lectures  occupy  a  place  entirely  their  own,  and  that 
Dr  Sorley  has  accomplished  a  masterpiece  of  literature." 

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